The next morning comes without event. I carefully inspect the room with my eyes as I wake up, making sure they don’t have any conveniently placed traps on the floorboards next to me. My left arm still feels slightly stiff, though the worst of the damage is now gone, as I stop to check my shoulder under my shirt. I set my feet on the floor to find no change in the room, except for the light coming in through the window.

I get the rest of my outfit back on, and stuff my daisho through my belt as usual. I step through the bedroom door, admittedly not knowing what time it was, to find the old man and the other man, the one in the suit, waiting for me. I slip my hand in one of my pockets. “Alright, let’s have your elevator pitch.”

“If you join us, you will be able to learn from us, but you will also be called to do certain… tasks.” The old man tilted his head near the end of that sentence, apparently trying to be verbally discrete even in his own safehouse.

“Such as?”

“Well, traditional mobs get money off of protection rackets. We’re the ‘counter-protection’ kind of players, since the cops don’t seem to care too much themselves.” Counter-protection? That’s actually a viable business strategy? Hard to believe for a mafia to be making money just off of protection.

“So you’re just a Yakuza with window dressing?”

This got a laugh out of the old man. He displays a wry smile, and I catch the other man smirking.

“You’ve got it backwards, darling. We don’t pursue the fine art of swordsmanship to discipline mobsters into loyal goons, no, we simply take action to pick fights with the more traditional mobs to further our understanding of the true art of combat. Though, there is a more perilous component of the reasons why we do what we do.”

“Then the money is of no interest to you?”

“Oh, the money also helps keep us afloat. But, unlike a normal mob, I see little value in indulging myself in the finest cigars and luxury suits like you’d see normal mobsters do. You see, it is merely a matter of putting our theory into practice.” As goofy as that sounds, it makes sense; swordsmanship is widely considered to be a ‘dead art’, at least in the sense that it’s rarely ever used anymore.

“Very well, then… I suppose I’ll join, just to see what it’s like, and to see what you have to offer.”

“I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Lenny, take her to the other recruits.”

I’m taken along, past several streets and alleys, to what appears to be a dormitory by the man in the suit, but… outside of a college, for some reason. There are others inside, some roughly my physical “age”, but most much younger than that, all apparently recruits of the Haracrein.

Lenny walks along with me, past the first floor hallway which is dominated by two large rooms; one with cafeteria-like tables and one dominated by a large training mat instead, and up the stairs to the second floor, a hallway filled with many doors to different rooms. I notice some of the doors are open.

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The open doors had a varying number of people in the rooms. The most I saw in one room was four people, all relatively young, ranging from early teens to early 20s at the most. We finally reached one room at the end of the hallway, and Lenny opened the door for me. “You’ll be allowed three hours here to get situated, but after that we’ve got our first task lined up for you. I’ll tell you more about it once the time comes.”

I inspect the room I’m handed. There’s nobody else assigned to this area, and it has a small living room, a relatively cramped mini-kitchen, a few bedrooms, and a bathroom. I look into the bathroom, and sure enough there’s an actual shower, a relief for me to be seeing after how long I’ve been on the run without a change of clothes. Speaking of clothes, I walk around for a little bit longer and find a small washer and dryer. What I don’t get, though, is how four people—that’s the most I’ve seen assigned to one room—are supposed to cohabitate in a unit with only two beds, unless sleeping on a couch is just normal here.

One shower and a change of clothes later, I meet with Lenny on the first floor to go on our first assignment.

“So, our first assignment is gonna be pretty simple, but it will require some subtlety.”

“What, a burglary? Pickpocketing?”

“No. Eavesdropping.”

If I was being sent to eavesdrop on someone, they had to be someone important, probably someone big, right? “So you’re just gonna send me up to go sit next to a big crime boss for my first mission?”

Lenny chuckled, then rolled his eyes. “No, you’re going to be listening in on a turncoat for our first mission.” He searches within his jacket, and finds a picture of what seems to be a group of Haracrein recruits, with one face circled in black marker, adorned with blond hair.

“Turncoat, huh? What did he do? And why?”

“He drugged a group of his friends, we’re not sure why. Predictably, he ran away, but after a short interrogation of his victims, we’ve got a lead that I want to use your help to pull on.”

“Why not go sniff around yourself? You look like a perfectly capable PI to me.” I admit, this particular question felt a little bit impetuous, but I wanted to know exactly how the higher-ups thought in the Haracrein.

“Don’t you know how to ask a lot of questions.” Lenny sighed. “If I do it, he’ll definitely recognize me, and if I sent anyone else there’s the risk he recognizes them, too. You, however, are a completely fresh face in need of a test drive, and your timing could not have been better for this.”

“Alright, sounds straightforward enough, but when and where are we gonna catch him?”

“I took the liberty of interrogating some of his friends, and one of them mentioned that he said he was gonna meet a ‘really cool guy’ at the Genn-Keele bar today at about 2 PM. That being said, we’ll just case the joint all day if we have to.”

“Very well, then. Let’s get moving.”